Wind Farms Are Sending Giant Turbine Blades To Landfills (staradvertiser.com) 334
The Associated Press reports that renewable energy companies like MidAmerican Energy face an unexpected problem when they try to replace the giant blades from their wind turbines
Landfill operators thought the composite blades, cut in 40-foot or larger sections, could be readily crushed and compacted. "But blades are so strong -- because they need to be strong to do their job -- they just don't break," said Amie Davidson, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources solid waste supervisor. "Sometimes pieces fly off and damage equipment" in the compacting process, she said. "Landfills are really struggling to manage them, and they just decide they can't accept them...." Bill Rowland, president of the Iowa Society of Solid Waste Operations, said he's unsure "we as a society" considered what would happen to the blades as older turbines are repowered. "There wasn't a plan in place to say, 'How are we going to recycle these?' 'How are we going to reduce the impact on landfills?'" said Rowland, director of the Landfill of North Iowa near Clear Lake...
When it started investing in wind, MidAmerican believed a blade recycling option would emerge. "Thus far, it hasn't," said Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for MidAmerican, adding that the company is talking with other wind developers that may be interested in using the blades for their own projects...
The difficulty in reusing blades adds to the complaints opponents make against wind energy. Some who live near the turbines complain that low-frequency noise and light flickering from the blades make them ill. And the spinning blades can kill migrating birds and bats.... Kerri Johannsen, the Iowa Environmental Council's energy program director, said more recycling solutions are needed. But, she added, it's not a reason to "turn away from wind energy -- a solution that can help mitigate the most dangerous threats from climate change...."
According to the article, one U.S. Department of Energy researcher told the Des Moines Register that wind energy will create over one million tons of fiberglass and other composite waste, adding that "The scale of the issue is quite large... And it's a larger sustainability issue."
When it started investing in wind, MidAmerican believed a blade recycling option would emerge. "Thus far, it hasn't," said Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for MidAmerican, adding that the company is talking with other wind developers that may be interested in using the blades for their own projects...
The difficulty in reusing blades adds to the complaints opponents make against wind energy. Some who live near the turbines complain that low-frequency noise and light flickering from the blades make them ill. And the spinning blades can kill migrating birds and bats.... Kerri Johannsen, the Iowa Environmental Council's energy program director, said more recycling solutions are needed. But, she added, it's not a reason to "turn away from wind energy -- a solution that can help mitigate the most dangerous threats from climate change...."
According to the article, one U.S. Department of Energy researcher told the Des Moines Register that wind energy will create over one million tons of fiberglass and other composite waste, adding that "The scale of the issue is quite large... And it's a larger sustainability issue."
It's always the same (Score:3)
People like to offload their non-immediate issues on tomorrow-them. Nothing new.... I don't think this is going to get any better because hat kind of reasoning has been with us for millennia.
Landfills are the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the blades that are the problem, it's the landfills. Even if a modern landfill manages to seal off the waste from rainfall (want to buy a bridge?), what a wonderful "gift" to leave for future generations. The pollution caused by landfills that are not properly sealed (or whose seals degrade over time, which is inevitable), is massive, and basically the only fix is to dig it all up and put it...in another landfill.
Incinerate. Get the energy back out of all that material, instead of occupying huge swaths of land, and letting weird chemicals seep out over decades. Wind turbine blades are mostly composites, and composites burn just fine. On top of that, the subsequent processing of the gases and ash return valuable elements, including nearly all metals. This reduces the need for mining, which is a huge environmental win.
Many people seem to react badly to the idea of incinerators. Apparently, back in the 1950s or so, numerous incinerators were built with basically open chimneys, and they polluted horrible. Modern incinerators are extremely clean. Of course, the climate activists will protest the CO2, but I submit that the long-term harm caused by landfills is at least as bad, and likely worse.
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How are you going to fit said blade into the burner? How will you handle the residue in the burner?
The problem isn't that carbon fibre doesn't burn. The problem is that it's so damn hard and strong that it's ridiculously costly to cut it into small enough pieces to actually fit into burners.
There are also some issues with burning it, but those are secondary to problems of just getting those huge blades into small enough parts where they will fit into existing burners and actually burn effectively.
Re:Landfills are the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that it's so damn hard and strong that it's ridiculously costly to cut it into small enough pieces to actually fit into burners.
The what now? It's no steel. Cut it with a water jet or something.
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It's stronger than steel. It's carbon fibre. We use it instead of steel because it's stronger and lighter than steel.
And working it is much, much harder than steel, which is why it's so damnably expensive.
Most people forget that one of the main reasons why wind turbines only became a thing about two decades ago is primarily because we had no materials that could meet the strength and weight requirements for megawatt-class and larger wind turbines.
Those blades are incredibly strong. Because they have to be.
Re:Landfills are the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
"Stronger than steel" doesn't mean much without qualifiers.
Carbon fiber has roughly 3x the longitudinal higher tensile strength of steel, but it also has roughly 1/20th the shear strength. You'll have a hard time snapping a carbon fiber thread with tension, but you can easily cut them with scissors.
=Smidge=
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It's stronger than steel. It's carbon fibre. We use it instead of steel because it's stronger and lighter than steel.
Uhhh...steel is isotropic. Carbon fibre is not.
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Which is why the fiber is laid up in multiple directions to give the final product the strength it needs in all directions.
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CFRP shatters easily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Are you seriously comparing a thin competition bike wheel that is specifically designed to be as thin and light as possible and survive just a few hours of stress without breaking to huge wind turbine blades that are specifically designed to take massive stresses for over a decade?
Really?
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They were designed to withstand a very specific type of stress. That is perfectly possible with carbon. But if it gets stressed in a way it is not designed for it delaminates and shatters because the plastic matrix is far weaker than the carbon fibre mats. Case in point, carbon saddle posts - pretty strong ones, mind you, for general MTB use - that are clamped just a little too tight. Have ruined one myself.
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I am comparing something that was designed to survive a lot longer than few hours to something that was designed to survive a lot longer than few hours. If it helps you to understand, I can switch the language: Carbon lomayetsya legche, chem ti dumayesh.
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Recycle them them. Give me a few guys with the right qualifications and half mil to spend on plant and I bet I could have a facility up and running to take those things and refurbish them into good-as-new ones.
This is all nimby shit anyway. Like the whole "low energy vibrations making me sick". That shits been studied, it isn't real. Its the same kind of "5G is making us all get autism due to scary ATOMS" nonsense from middle class whingers who hate progress.
Wind energy is proven technology that significant
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>Recycle them them. Give me a few guys with the right qualifications and half mil to spend on plant and I bet I could have a facility up and running to take those things and refurbish them into good-as-new ones.
A people far smarter than both of us spent billions in this field. Yes, thousands of times more than what you're asking for. Because carbon fibre and composites with it are all but impossible to recycle in a cost effective way. It's so hard that makers have to throw out products that come out of t
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This is correct. Carbon fibre is very hard to burn beyond surface, especially the kind used in wind turbine blades. They're a complex mix of carbon and glass fibres, which do not burn well at all.
Don't forget that they are specifically made to be fire resistant, as wind turbine fires are very difficult to put out due to lack of access, so the standard procedure is to quarantine the area and the fire burn out. At which point, blades are still preferably attached to the rotor, and not causing severe damage to
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It is the carbon fibre reinforced plastic that is the problem and will be even more of a problem now that most airplanes use a lot of composites. Unlike aluminium and titanium that stuff is not recycleable.
Blades are structurally valuable, reuse (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, the blades are not the problem. In contrast, the idea of crushing and compacting them for disposal in landfills is sheer failure of thought, not only making the landfill problem still worse (as you point out), but wasting a very valuable resource.
The ex-turbine blades are highly engineered structural components which can still be used for structural purposes even when they are no longer usable in wind turbines.
There are very many alternative structural uses which could continue to benefit from their material strength for decades, if not centuries. Some of these could even yield profit instead of the total loss of landfill, like making sections available to the home DIY enthusiast market which is always in need of good structural materials. "Ex-wind turbine" is a statement of strength with market value, just like "ex-railroad" is for sleepers.
My preferred redeployment would be to use them as scaffolding for new habitats. Just stick one end of a few dozen of them into the ground and soon enough nature will colonize the man-made structure into a dense grove. Or embed them into the sea floor to create man-made reefs at desired locations, in the same way as sunken ships create valuable marine habitats but in unhelpfully random places around the world.
To destroy strong structural materials shows no imagination, just a destructive throwaway mentality.
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Where's your American business sense?
Using PCs as an example, Dell has set up a rather aggressive and efficient 'recovery' program. They collect used PCs as they are donated at the local Goodwill stores and quickly shift them off to be destroyed.
They don't want people figuring out they can put Linux on them and they're still usable.
Free Sails! (Score:2)
Could you use them to "power" a sailboat?
How different would the general shape be from a wingsail?
Some of those blades are huge! You could make something big, and ocean going that's capable of hauling freight.
Cheers!
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What is this bullshit propoganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously - these 1990's lines about seeing blades in the distance being a health hazard from flickering lights...
This is overbearing real estate developer, fossil fuel prospector bullshit.
They're large turbines. Variants are used in all kinds of industrial uses all the time. Only instead, in this particular use, instead of say, running a cruise ship using the dirtiest possible fuels using 80,000+ gallons of fuel each day - it's generating energy in place of fossil fuels.
But no - we can't allow ourselves even this teeny tiny bit of something a little less bad - no we have to devil's advocate every aspect of it as every opportunity.
And present it without any real comparison to what it's replacing.
I'm not against these folks being wrong - just the acceptance of this absurdity as valid news.
Ryan Fenton
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This is about the fact that first large batches of wind turbines are coming to end of useful life, and we are noticing that we have no means of getting rid of certain parts in them. Parts like the blades, which have no analogue in "other industrial uses". Those are utterly unique parts.
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Water jet cutters aren't difficult or expensive if you really need to reduce them. But it's not actually that big a problem to just bury them as is either.
It's literally sequestering carbon that way.
The complaints are full-on bullshit.
Ryan Fenton
The lamest fossil fuel trolling I've eved read. (Score:4, Funny)
"Oh noes, Fan blades are a bit tougher to crush ... unlike the motor blocks we shred daily .. Therefore we must abolish wind energy, and go back to fossil fuels!"
So build a bigger shredder! Or melt them in a long oven. It's not exactly harder than cleaning black goop off half a continent's worth of coast, now is it?
Jesus, if it was for people like you, we would've never gotten to the moon, because "Oohhh, it is soo hard to actually achieve something worthwile!".
Can we have that 50 swastikas troll back? At least he had some fire!
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It's not that it's impossible.
It's that the cost of doing that, and the cost of that big blade-chomping machine, is untenable compared to just landfill + whatever associated costs of doing that (e.g. fines for landfilling or whatever is in place).
You make a big blade-chomping machine in a place that can manoeuvre and handle these huge things, and put in place all the machinery and access and transport for... what... a few blades a year... to get non-recyclable, unusable junk out of them, crushed and put int
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low-frequency noise ? (Score:2)
> complain that low-frequency noise and light flickeringÂ
have there been measurements to substantiate those claims
or is this another case of "the wifi is giving me headaches" ?
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have there been measurements to substantiate those claims
There is. [canada.ca] Only most sample sizes are tiny, even though what was reported by people was recorded at least in the federal study done here in Canada. What can't be concluded is whether some people are more sensitive, or there are other environmental factors that cause/and/or amplify it.
Re:low-frequency noise ? (Score:5, Interesting)
First I need to say, wind turbines will generate infra sound that is for sure, but on the other hand trees and building that are affected by wind will do too.
Flickering(reflection) is long gone because the top coat was changed and got more rough and less reflective.
Flickering from shadow going over someones property can be ommitted by a time and date depended shutdown, that is often also a regulartory requirement for operation. This will not hamper energy production much, because those effects will only occur in the morning or late afternoon when the sun is low (long shdows) and sun will change pretty fast around that time.
Second I need to say wind turbines will generate machine operation noise too and yes you can hear a wind turbines humming(gearbox for example and blade "woosh - woosh - woosh") - at around 800m this sound will mostly have blend in with the white noise produced by the wind itself with trees and leafs for example.
I have spent much time working around and at wind turbines also in the down wind area and I cannot say that I have experienced anything except that inside a certain radius I can hear the normal sound. I live near wind turbines ~1km (0,7 mi) away.
The problem with those infra sound affected people is that my judgement is that those people that are against wind turbines and think that they are an eye sore can be affected by psycho somatic effects. Interestingly this "wind turbine sickness" appeared after people held talks at anti wind ralleys.
Illin' (Score:2)
Those people should see how healthy they feel living next to a coal plant, or just going without electricity.
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Those people should see how healthy they feel living next to a coal plant, or just going without electricity.
Or they could just use electricity from a nuclear power plant?
Surprise? (Score:2)
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On the other hand, solar has turned out insanely recyclable. Sometimes we can delaminate the silicon wafers and outright reuse them. We recover all the metals and trace elements. The plastic components are recyclable.
Parabolic concentrated solar is just polished stainless steel and a heat engine.
Solar is reliable, affordable, and renewable; wind is ass.
Re:Surprise? (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't have to be toxic for it to be non-recyclable.
You're still using things like oil and other resources to make a product that, once used, ends up in landfill and can't be recycled (the word "yet" is just optimism, fact is it couldn't be recycled when it was made, can't be recycled now, and they only have *plans* to make it recyclable in the future).
We *did* know all this. People chose to ignore it and "expect magic to happen in the future" to facilitate it. Fact is, they've never been recyclable in all the time they've existed so far.
Now consider the energy used to create, handle and dispose of such things, and the energy that will be required - once someone finds some way to recycle these - to reform them into some other useful product. That should *all* have been taken account of in any "how green is this?" analysis, without future optimism in case there is no reasonable way to recycle them.
This is not news, unless you've only ever swallowed what the wind industry have been saying, without question. Solar has the same problem. "They're recyclable". OK. Find someone who can recycle a field full of 20-year-old solar panels, at what cost, and how much energy is involved in recycling them?
Same problem with lithium batteries too. NOBODY has ever recycled old lithium batteries back to battery-grade lithium.
https://batteryuniversity.com/... [batteryuniversity.com]
"Lead acid is the only battery that can be recycled profitably."
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>> NOBODY has ever recycled old lithium batteries back to battery-grade lithium
That is clearly industrial grade bullshit.
https://recyclinginternational... [recyclingi...tional.com]
"Upwards of 97 000 tonnes of lithium-ion batteries were recycled in 2018."
" That’s about 50% of the volume that reached end-of-life"
"In terms of use and reuse, lithium ion batteries are one of the most circular products you can ever think of."
One word: Inexperienced scrappers (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, I must admit, I have worked with wind turbine blades. Yes, they are sturdy. But last time I have had one scrapped, it was cut (yes cut, with dust suppression) and then shredd into smaller pieces and those parts were burned in a cement factory. Because they have separators for the glass residue.
No problems at all, so basically this report tells me, they had no support from the blade/turbine manufacturer about the structural weak points.
I think the landfill operator missjudged the effort needed to cut it into pieces that really can be shred, it's just more cutting and less dropping a big weight on certain sections. As the blade gets thinner to the tip a weight will not slip off there that easily.
A landfill is really the worst idea to dispose wind turbine blades. Another is to grind up the blade and use it as an addition to asphalt.
And pls don't complain about CO2 emissions from the blades being burned, they have saved many times of that. Everything we do in our CO2 driven world will emit CO2, and we are on the way to replace CO2 usage bit by bit.
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Use As Building Materials? (Score:2)
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Generally I would say, no. Because blades that have been cut or cracked open - or have been worn down over time by environment - have glass fibers laying on the outside, when you touch it you will have an itch from the cracked small fibers sticking on your hand.
And believe me, a blade that is nearing its EOL will be run down - because repairs except safety critical will not occur because adding 3% efficiency 1yr before EOL will not cover the investment.
I have seen blades where the erosion protection failed
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I have joked with a colleague when we had a 4m root-only section of a blade for our tests, that after the tests have been completed he can use it as a play house for his children ;)
But this blade we had had a 3,5m (~11ft.) root diameter, compared to the ones on the picture are about 2,3m(~7ft.) in diameter and soon transition to the flat profile structure.
But the effort to produce those products is very high, you need to keep in mind that the blades were produced for industry and not for housing and so migh
As othes have said, this is full on FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
There appears to be no problem cutting up 100K ton oil tankers or demolishing old skyscrapers, so someone please tell me why 10 ton turbine blades are such an issue?
Whats that? They can't be crushed? So don't crush them, cut them up. Is he slag from coal fired power stations crushed? No, its dumped in small hill sized heaps and left for half a century. But thats apparently ok.
Just because some rednecks in the middle of nowhere can't used their 1960s crushers on them doesn't mean it can't be done.
Why are they trying to crush them? (Score:2)
Rather than re-purpose them?
The blades are super strong...okay...so use them. Seriously, you're telling me that these things could not be planted in cement to form the ribs of a gazebo? Could re-purpose them by building gazebos in schools across America. Foot bridges in parks. Heck, I wonder how they would fair hammered into dirt and mud as non-rotting pilings.
THINK
Can't they be recycled? (Score:2)
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Asset retirement obligations (Score:2)
It’s the CRT problem once again (Score:2)
Though composites and leaded glass can’t be recycled in the same way as ordinary plastic and glass, having a lot of one kind of hard-to-recycle waste just means we have to develop a specific recycling processes for these items. Leaded glass is valuable for certainty applications, and somewhere out there will be a use for turbine blade composites.
"Unexpected problem" (Score:2)
No, it's a "conveniently ignored problem".
From 2011: https://co2insanity.com/2011/0... [co2insanity.com]
From 2009: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.o... [semanticscholar.org]
Being too strong to break is NOT a problem (Score:2)
That's like saying "You know, this car is just too fuel efficient."
It's a solution looking for the problem. There has to be a really good use as building materials, it just takes a good designer.
More anti-renewable propaganda (Score:3)
Two months ago, the fossil fuel industry (I assume) put out information about the "waste disposal" problem with wind turbines, stating that 720,000 tons of turbine parts would have to be discarded over a 20 year period. Oh my gosh! That's a big number!!!
But...the coal plants in the US produce that much waste EVERY TWO DAYS, and the coal ash contains heavy metals and known carcinogens, and often winds up polluting groundwater and rivers. So how about a little perspective? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com]
I assume today's article is more of the same FUD. Don't be fooled.
Roofing shingles (Score:3)
How many million of tons fiberglass roofing shingles get sent to landfill every year?
Hit piece (Score:3)
If you really want to destroy the blades, just feed them through an industrial shredder.
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I just wonder if they're that strong why do they need to be replaced?
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because material fatigue is a thing.
Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)
"I just wonder if they're that strong why do they need to be replaced?"
Like most men, they wanted a bigger one.
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Just because the whole thing is a pain to break down completely doesn't mean its integrity can be guaranteed.
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There are worse things left behind in San Jose, and none of them by that guy.
Re: So? (Score:2)
Uhm your mom is insulting your parents as a way to push your buttons? No I got nothing sorry.
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
because many of the older ones are no longer economically viable to run, they were surviving on subsidies.
According to the article it is because they are upgrading to new blades which are 20% more efficient, rebuilding the hubs and refurbished generators.
This means the entire farm will generate 20% more energy in the same amount of space.
So cheaper to dismantle and dispose of then keep maintaining them.
According to the article they are spending $14 Billion on upgrades. The reason why this is significant is because the counterweight for the tower is a massive chunk of concrete which itself has and energetic input when constructed. What this upgrade demonstrates is that a wind installation will yield multiple returns on that initial investment becoming *more* profitable for operators over time.
Whilst the waste issue is something that will have to be dealt with it shows the innovative nature of the wind industry and how well wind power scales up. This is first generation technology being replaced with later generation technology, considering how innovations are occurring in parallel this industry is set to grow a lot.
Consequently I don't think it will be long before we see a second hand market emerge for these blades whilst they come up with a solution.
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If the material could be recycled maybe. Why not drag some portable device that can break them down and just locate it on site so you don’t have to haul the blades around. Break them up into smaller pieces and use energy from the wind farm to power whatever process is necessary to recycle the blades. Hell, it’s a great use of any excess power at off peak times when turbines might other be stopped.
That's a great idea, you could directly incorporate the energy costs of processing the blades directly into the upgrade as they come online. It may also be the case that the recycling of the blades is designed into the blades, but for what is the question that needs to be answered.
Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)
> SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
LOL, In the spirit of communism, I'm taking this and and will be re-distributing it to the masses.
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
I kind of wonder if the blades could be used as break-waters. http://www.concreteships.org/s... [concreteships.org] http://www.concreteships.org/s... [concreteships.org] Though, if they're fiberglass maybe salt water isn't the best place for them.
Kind of like sinking concrete ships for the same purpose.
Or even using them somewhere you want to guide the flow of water, like hill-sides. Like a curb to steer water down a path you want it to flow along.
Art installations maybe? a-la car henge http://images.huffingtonpost.c... [huffingtonpost.com]
If nothing else couldn't the slice them into smaller chunks (say 10') before trying to compact them?
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1. Nuclear "waste" would fit quite neatly into the mines from which the original nuclear fuel was taken. It is no more radioactive than that fuel.
2. Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactors (WAMSRs) and other types of nuclear power generator actually consume nuclear "waste" as fuel.
3. It is very likely that standards for acceptable radioactivity levels have been set far too low. It turns out that parts of the world with the highest natural background radioactivity (which is very high compared to government s
Un... no (Score:2)
Several of the nuclear waste products are bioactive. This includes radioative iodine 131 and caesium, 137 and strontium 90. These elements have very small neutron cross sections, and once produced, they CANNOT be used as fuel or broken down in any thpe of nuclear reaction. They have hlaf lives of 30-300 years. This makes them quite hot, but also insures that they will remain dangerous form many centuries.
You DO NOT want these elements anywhere where they can enfer the biosphere and food chain.
They can be de
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We don't have to do that for nuclear waste either. If thoroughly used, we'd produce a few barrels of nuclear waste per year or so, which if properly encased, should not irradiate anything and can be buried for the few hundred years it needs to be.
To date only a few thousand of these barrels exist and that is mostly due to weapons and medical manufacturing, not power related. Moreover breeder reactors could still use most of it as fuel.
Fukushima caused 1 death, Chernobyl less than 30. More people have died m
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Radiation is scary and nobody understands how to think about the risks of scary things.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear waste takes up a tiny amount of land. their is a fuckload of wind turbines around the world.
The world is big. The space taken up by discarded turbine blades is utterly insignificant. Disposable diapers take up way more space in landfills, yet nobody sees dirty nappies as an existential crisis.
MidAmerican Energy is a big gas producer and retailer. They also operate coal plants. This is just anti-wind FUD.
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Well, actually there are calls to go back to reusable nappies (as we call them) but unsurprisingly there is considerable resistance from parents who are already struggling with lack of sleep and constant parenting chores.
Seems like there is an opportunity here for recycling. Presumably the blades themselves are not worn out, it's the rest of the turbine that is being replaced by an even larger one.
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Reusable nappies are green either - they require a huge amount of water, electricity and detergent to clean them.
There is no green solution to the nappy problem unfortunately other than people having fewer kids , and whenever thats mentioned the womens rights lobby start another round of wailing.
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I don't disagree. I was only pointing out that there is an argument being made against disposable nappies.
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no green solution to the nappy problem unfortunately
Actually, there is.
In much of Asia, babies wear open crotch pants [wikipedia.org], so they can just squat and do their business. Before they are old enough to squat, their parents periodically hold them over a pot. The babies quickly learn what this means, and are potty trained at around one-year-old compared to two or three-years-old in the West.
I used this method for both of my kids.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
compared to two or three-years-old in the West
Dang, is that the average? Several of my college friends all had theirs trained before 2 years old. Two of my friends were telling me a few months ago about how they were concerned about their kids being "behind on training" when the kids were around 15 and 17 months old.
Thinking about if up to 3 is "average" for some..... just makes me think about how I saw some proposed law in Texas about kids possibly being in booster sets up to 12 years old???? Meanwhile I thought it was embarrassing that my wife's 5 year old nephew was still in a booster seat.....
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Thinking about if up to 3 is "average" for some..... just makes me think about how I saw some proposed law in Texas about kids possibly being in booster sets up to 12 years old???? Meanwhile I thought it was embarrassing that my wife's 5 year old nephew was still in a booster seat.....
The law would just be codifying what the American Academy of Pediatrics has published as their car safety guidelines, and no one should be embarrassed for putting their 5-year-old in a booster seat.
Keeping a kid in a booster seat longer isn't about infantilizing them or a lack of maturity: it's about biomechanics and physics. A child can not be safely restrained anided by a shoulder belt in a typical car. In a crash the shoulder strap will strangle them, cause internal organ damage, or shear vital arterie
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd be surprised how efficient the modern clothes washer is. 0.26kWh for a cold cycle and 1.82kWh for a hot cycle (electric water heating takes energy). A 100-watt spin dryer for 5 minutes uses 0.0083 additional kWh, after which you can dry clothes at 3,000 watts in the tumble dryer in five minutes for 0.25kWh (I regularly extract over half a gallon of greywater from a load of clothes).
That means on a hot cycle you're using 2.0783kWh and on a cold cycle you're using 0.5183kWh. Front loader on cold wash pulls about 15 gallons of water. The sewage system will recover and bioreact the waste and detergent.
Mind you, many people use cat litter lockers that store cat litter for a week or so before emptying outside, or diaper disposers that fill with diapers over days. Same deal. You batch your load each weak, but you'll need some kind of containment unit until then.
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You're not getting boiling water out of your residential water heater. Cotton nappies at home are an interesting problem, but if we can deliver McDonalds to your door we can resurrect the home delivery diaper industry. My mom used that for 10 years, my dad considered it a necessity, five kids is enough nappies to make you cry.
Old is new.
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You're not getting boiling water out of your residential water heater.
Have you seen the latest washing machines? They have internal heaters so they can do actual steam cycles.
That said, whether washed commercially with high efficiency in detergent use*, or in a home washer, the resources used isn't that far off from actual clothing.
And even without steam cycles, between detergent and the drying cycle, even an ordinary washer+dryer is adequately sanitary. Even things like hang drying in the sun will finish off any fecal dwelling bugs that might remain after soap has killed m
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Nuclear waste takes up a tiny amount of land. their is a fuckload of wind turbines around the world.
The world is big. The space taken up by discarded turbine blades is utterly insignificant.
...and they aren't radioactive either.
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nobody sees dirty nappies as an existential crisis
Well, some of us do. Not the nappies specifically, but the stupidity of burying them in endless landfills, for some other generation to deal with. Incinerate the things, get the energy back out, and use it to do something useful.
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>The world is big
Personally, I would rather not put up wind turbines in migration quarters killing off birds. The world is big but increasingly shrinking that world for animals is going to be the end of them. Nuclear doesn't have the foot print of a wind farm. When the leading cause of death for all animals is habitat loss it's a bad idea to take away more habitat or obstruct migration patterns.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Biggest killer of birds is glass windows, followed by cats. Modern turbines turn slow enough that they don't kill too many birds though you are right that migration routes should be avoided.
Hmm, actually Googling shows cats as number one killer, followed by power lines, buildings and cars with turbines not even being close to the top killer,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politi... [www.cbc.ca]
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> "Children are just as optional as wind mills".
Absolutely nobody said this, though.
=Smidge=
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Oh, I see... Wow that's some twisted logic, and based on your misunderstanding of what is being said. The desire is not to stop people having children, it's for them to use re-usable nappies. Basically you have to wash them after use. For obvious reasons parents tend to prefer disposable.
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Maybe, but your logic is "someone said nappies in landfill is an issue, therefore they must not want people to have children even though the solution they proposed doesn't involve a reduction in the number of children."
It's rather bizarre.
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As a bunch of other people have said; Disposable diapers are not necessary. They are a luxury item.
Would you like to try again?
=Smidge=
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Have a baby and get back to us on that. Just because something improves on something that was previously missing, doesn't mean that it's a "luxury item".
In addition to disposable nappies, other similar "formerly luxury items that became base necessities" range from tampons to motorized transport.
Headline (Score:4, Funny)
Talk about a father of all Freudian slips.
The congresswoman's unfortunate last name provides the mother of all Freudian headlines:
Kuntz Oppose Wind Farms or Kuntz Blocks Wind Update or No Wind from Kuntz.
No doubt backed by a talented press secretary who has seen every single faux pas.
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No Wind from Kuntz.
Then just call them queef farms, problem solved.
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No Wind from Kuntz.
Then just call them queef farms, problem solved.
How about No Queef from Kuntz or Anti-Wind Kuntz Queefs Briefly On Towers, perhaps Kuntz Can't Queef Quiet About Wind
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Well, No Queef from Kuntz would not be true (that's the point...).
So you're suggesting that No Queef from Kuntz is FAKE NEWS!!! God God man, do you know what that means???
No Queef from Asses would be true though, but then call it wind again :-)
Kuntz Fake Queef Wind
this is appalling...
Dig a little deeper (Score:2, Flamebait)
Correction Juile is not a congresswoman at all. It turns out Kuntz is a member of an anti-wind power organization that attacks wind power developments around the world at as many levels as they can. I'm not going to promote their organization however I do think the term "OK Boomer" provides a reasonable description for what I've found so far. They are organized to attack wind developments in the US, UK, Germany and many other places. Tacit for support for nuclear power in one article I read too.
This en
The Anti-Wind lobby at work (Score:2)
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True. Shred the fiberglass, repurpose the debris in epoxy as shells for the homeless. Built in toilets and sinks, bed, no sharp edges, done deal.
Just sayin.
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I would guess that the reason they were removed in the first place is that they are no longer fit for purpose, or no longer profitable (i.e. they don't actually function to generate useful amounts of energy) else they'd just change the generator and leave the tower + blades in place.